I’ve been blogging for quite a while now and it’s been an amazing, overwhelming, and informational journey so far.
Even though I am a digital marketer, my career wasn’t so “blog-focused” before starting a blog so there are many things that I learned and realized after starting my blog.
So, here are some things which I already knew before starting a blog such as:
- You have to write a lot in blogging
- You must post consistently
- Blogging is not easy, to begin with at all
But there are many things that I learned after starting my blog that I wish I knew before and that’s why I am creating this post for you.
If you are thinking about starting your blog then it’s a great thing that you found this post because trust me, I’ve poured everything here that you need to know about blogging.
And if you have already started your blog then you are also most welcome here because there might be some info here which you may not know till now.
I don’t want to beat around the bush too much so let’s delve into it, shall we?
> Related: 7 Places to must use keywords in your blog posts
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- 10 THINGS I WISH I KNEW BEFORE STARTING A BLOG
- 1- YOU'LL NEED TO INVEST IN BLOGGING FROM THE GET-GO
- 2- YOU'LL NEED A SELF HOSTED PLATFORM
- 3- BLOGGING IS A LONG-TERM GAME
- 4- IT'S CHALLENGING TO SEE TRAFFIC IN EARLY DAYS
- 5- YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A PRO OR EXPERT
- 6- YOU'LL NEED TO LEARN SEO
- 7- DESIGNING A GOOD-LOOKING AND NEAT WEBSITE IS NECESSARY
- 8- YOU CAN DESIGN YOUR WEBSITE YOURSELF
- 9- YOUR MAIN GOAL IS TO GIVE VALUE TO YOUR READERS
- 10- IT'S GONNA TAKE SOME TIME TO FIND YOUR VOICE AND STYLE
- 10 THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE STARTING A BLOG: FINAL THOUGHTS
10 THINGS I WISH I KNEW BEFORE STARTING A BLOG
Please note that these are some things that I experienced in my blogging journey. Consider these points as tips for your blog too. Here we go:
1- YOU’LL NEED TO INVEST IN BLOGGING FROM THE GET-GO
Starting a blog is not free. You’ll need a self-hosted platform like WordPress to launch your blog. Yes, you can start a blog for free using third-party platforms but you won’t have full control over it.
WordPress itself is free. The only expenses of starting a blog are a domain, hosting, and a nice-looking theme. If you do not know WordPress whatsoever then I recommend you to check out this complete beginner guide on how to use WordPress.
We’ll discuss more on the self-hosted blog below.
Once you have launched your blog, there are more expenses that you may need to invest in such as a good email marketing tool, courses, or some plugins/schedulers, etc. You’ll need to invest in designing tools like Canva or paid stock photos and the list goes on and on.
The expenses are a lot for blogging, both before and after its launch.
Starting a free blog is pretty much a waste of time according to me. If you want to generate passive income out of blogging then it’s a good decision to invest some money on blogging.
2- YOU’LL NEED A SELF HOSTED PLATFORM
As we have discussed above, you’ll need a self-hosted platform for your blog to have complete control over it.
There are many reasons for that:
- You’ll have full control over your site, you can customize it according to your brand and design it however you like.
- Self-hosted blogs give you more options for monetization.
- Having your domain gives your blog a much more professional look. Visitors are more likely to take you seriously that way.
- You can do the SEO of your blog much better.
There are many more reasons but I think you get the point here. You should start a self-hosted blog!
Yes, there are many other platforms like Medium, BlogSpot, blogger, etc. through which you can start a free blog. You won’t have to build the authority there but that is not your authority. there is already a good amount of audience there but that audience won’t be that loyal to you.
Would you like that?
I don’t think so.
I’ve read this quote somewhere: “Successful people don’t earn more, they invest. They invest so they can earn more.”
If you have made up your mind to invest in blogging then I recommend starting with the Hostinger hosting plan because it’s affordable and trusted.
I also have a full tutorial on how to start a blog for beginners using Hostinger.
> Related: 5 Best Web Hosting services to start a blog
3- BLOGGING IS A LONG-TERM GAME
This is important to keep in mind. Blogging is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It takes a lot of time and hard work.
Blogging is not difficult or rocket science, it just takes a lot of time, hard work, and consistency. You can’t expect to start a blog today and start to see results 30 days later. You won’t.
It takes up to 6 months of consistent posting and SEO implementation to start seeing any kind of traction.
But why’s that? Simple, Google doesn’t care about new sites.
You won’t even find your blog URLs on Google if your site is new. Google prioritizes older domains that have a good amount of quality posts. You’ll have to build trust with Google and that’s what takes time. A couple of years to be exact with the Google algorithm changing so frequently.
Blogging is not complex, understanding Google is.
So keep posting consistently and implement SEO on your blog posts and along with that create a Pinterest account and share your blog posts there.
Pinterest is a secret weapon for bloggers as it doesn’t care about the age of your domain. Create beautiful pins and link your blog posts to the pins to bring traffic to your site.
It takes a couple of months on Pinterest to start seeing traction but it’s way easier to rank on it than Google.
4- IT’S CHALLENGING TO SEE TRAFFIC IN EARLY DAYS
As I have mentioned earlier, google doesn’t care about new sites. AT ALL! So it’s kind of impossible to get any kind of traffic through Google in the early days unless you are an SEO expert.
And by any chance, if you see some traffic from Google then that’s not from real people, that is bot traffic which will probably disappear after some days.
The first year of blogging is probably the hardest because it can get very overwhelming and demotivating from time to time. But “trust the process” and it will start to make sense after some time.
Bringing traffic to your blog in the early days is tricky but not impossible. Yes, it is possible! How? Pinterest!
You can get an amount of traffic to your blog through Pinterest. Create a business account and share beautiful pins there linking to your blog posts. It’s not that simple but it’s not impossible.
Using Pinterest to bring traffic to your blog post and building your audience is a whole different topic so I am just making sure that you are aware of it.
Pinterest comes in clutch when Google doesn’t care about you at all.
5- YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A PRO OR EXPERT
Even though I am a digital marketer and have a good knowledge of internet marketing, I wasn’t sure if I should start a blog or not.
That’s because I have no expertise in content writing and English is not even my first language. So I wasn’t sure if I could write that well or not. I am still not confident about my writing skills.
But I never imagined in my life that I would enjoy writing blog posts as much as I do now. It brings me joy. I enjoy it, a lot.
Sure, I made many mistakes but I learned from my past mistakes and I am a much-improved person now in terms of blogging.
This made me realize that anyone can do blogging and that’s the beauty of it. You’ll learn something new every day. If you are not an expert now, you’ll become an expert in the future.
At last, you have to start somewhere.
6- YOU’LL NEED TO LEARN SEO
SEO is something that you just shouldn’t miss at all. But why? Because Google loves SEO so as a blogger you must love it too 🥹
Putting it in simple terms, you’ll need to build trust and authority on Google to be able to rank on it. SEO helps you with that. It stands for Search Engine Optimization. The name itself is pretty self-explanatory.
If the trust and authority of your site increases, your content will rank higher on Google and you’ll get more and more traffic. But it takes a lot of time.
SEO is a really broad topic so here are some of my posts to help you with that:
➤ How to do simple SEO of your blog posts in 10 ways
➤ Where to put keywords in your blog posts
➤ Top 3 Google SEO tools you must know about
Give your best with SEO and you’ll start to see results on your site.
7- DESIGNING A GOOD-LOOKING AND NEAT WEBSITE IS NECESSARY
Probably the first thing someone ever notices whenever they visit a new website is its design and navigation.
The look of your website is the first thing your viewers will ever notice and then your blog posts so you have to make sure that you won’t disappoint them.
Here are some ways to improve the look of your site:
- Choose a minimal amount of colors that are warm, cool, or neutral. Adding too many colors can be annoying and distracting.
- Use simple fonts which are easy to read and keep the size of the font readable.
- Add buttons or call-to-actions for easy navigation
- Create a menu to redirect visitors to other pages of your site easily
- Make the title and URL of pages and posts easy to understand.
- Make sure the elements are not overlapping.
If you don’t have the time to design a website yourself and you have the budget, you can consider hiring a web designer to help you design your site.
8- YOU CAN DESIGN YOUR WEBSITE YOURSELF
If you have spare time then it’s a good idea to design your website yourself. The best thing about WordPress is that there are many tutorials available online that can guide you in designing your website.
By designing your website by yourself, not only you are gaining a skill but it also opens the doors to creativity and productivity.
Yes, it can get confusing at the beginning but just like I said, there are many solutions available online to help you with anything.
Designing takes a lot of time and pre-planning but once you are done, trust me, you’ll be proud of yourself.
So, if you have the time and the creative mind then go for it!
9- YOUR MAIN GOAL IS TO GIVE VALUE TO YOUR READERS
Why did you start blogging or why are you thinking about starting a blog? Is it only about the money? If yes then, sorry to say but it’s not for you.
Sure, everyone wants to make money online but it’s not that easy. If you want people to read your posts then you have to give them something valuable in return.
Your two main goals with blogging are: Giving people value through your content and bringing traffic to it. Monetization comes after that.
Once you have the audience, the process of making money becomes easy so your readers should be your priority.
I say this line a lot in my blog posts: “Make your blog about your readers, not about you”.
You have to make sure the reader gets the solution to their problem after they read your posts.
10- IT’S GONNA TAKE SOME TIME TO FIND YOUR VOICE AND STYLE
When you start blogging then it’s your first time doing it. You have no idea how to structure a blog post, you don’t know how to create different headings, you don’t know how to design a website, and much more.
It’s all new!
You’ll have to take a look at the sites of other bloggers to take some knowledge and inspiration from them and you’ll eventually discover your style and tone.
That is how the whole learning arc of blogging goes and everyone experiences it at the beginning.
It’ll take some time to design a brand of your style. It’ll take some time to create blog posts in your style and it’ll take some time to get your whole website up and running.
It’s a whole process and sometimes it’s fun, and sometimes it’s frustrating but that’s the point. We all evolve and find our ways.
Just keep blogging and eventually, you’ll adjust yourself here.
10 THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE STARTING A BLOG: FINAL THOUGHTS
This probably be the most brutally honest blog post I’ve ever written. I’ve sprinkled every truth about blogging here that I could.
What do you think? How many of these points have you known before? Let me know in the comments below!
Excellent article. Straigh forward and understandable. Guess I need to work on SEO!
Thanks a lot, Linda!
Great article! Very helpful perspective. Thank you!
Thanks, Alessia!
This is such great advice. I’m still a relative newbie (been blogging less than a year) and so much of this rang true for me, and I learned some new things too! Thanks!
Thanks, Maria!
I am in my fourth month of blogging and definitely this information is useful.
Thanks for letting me know that, Catalina!